When you decide to make your website live and running on the Internet, you have got to stop right there because you have to first opt for the type of hosting plan. As observed that many people’s decision comes down to just the simple decision of whether to go with a dedicated web hosting plan or a shared web hosting plan. But let me tell you that this decision is really not that simple as it may seem to be. So basically as per your budget, basic needs or the company needs you have to account for the present, yet also the future growth as well. Obviously one can always switch plans if your web hosting company happens to have scalability options.

Overview – Shared Web Hosting Vs Dedicated Web Hosting

For those of you who are confused regarding what Shared hosting and Dedicated web hosting is, let me simplify it by stating that Shared hosting is simply when a single server is hosting many websites. It means that your website is together with other websites which happen to have the signed shared hosting agreements with your service provider. People opt for it since it turns out to be a little bit cheaper instead of having a server dedicated just to your website. The resources are being shared by you with other sites, which means that you will be sharing bandwidth, database, FTP accounts, and email accounts etc on the server.

So by now I am sure you can guess that a dedicated web hosting server is not shared with others. Your website happens to be the only one on that server and as you have the full privilege of the server’s full resources and your server provider is completely dedicated to you.

Shared Hosting

To enable you to develop a better understanding of shared hosting let’s explore the pros and cons of it:

Pros

– Affordability ease since the resources of the server are shared, which means that web hosting company can offer discounts to users

– Ideal for small businesses, blogs and personal websites

– You can focus on optimization of your site and extending your business prospects as all technical issues with server are taken care of by your web hosting company

– No need for prior knowledge about Windows or Linux

– No need for an administer since user interfaces such as cPanel makes it simple to manage your own website

– Even though server is shared, email goes to your domain name

– You get to have more than one database

– MySQL and PHP support from most web hosting providers

Cons

– Limited security features due to shared server

– Higher incident of hacking, though a good web hosting provider will be able to prevent this

– Cannot run any other software programs or utilities other than the ones either supported or provided by the web hosting company

– A huge data on the server can make your Websites go really slow as there are other websites on the server

– Servers can be overloaded as a result of which website will freeze up

– You have got to do the trouble-shooting yourself as Customer service is more of a “walk-through” in shared hosting

Dedicated Hosting

Now to make a better understanding and decision regarding which web hosting plan goes best according to your website’s needs, let’s explore the pros and cons of dedicated hosting plans

Pros

– Fastest speed, connectivity and uptime

– Ability to manage large amounts of traffic without interrupting service

– More storage and data options

– Total control of your own server

– More security and difficult to hack, making this ideal for companies with lots of customer information or large corporate accounts

– Ability to run software and utilities of your own choosing

– Control panel has more features giving you a greater amount of control

– Customer service is more “hands-on” with dedicated servers since you are paying more

Cons

– The price is Higher as compared to shared servers

– In order to fulfil the need for administering the server, prior knowledge (or outsourcing the job) is required

– In case a problem occurs then Diagnostics and problem resolution is way more difficult

CONCLUSION

Considering that both types of web hosting have their own pros and cons, it is all up to your budget and the business needs when you are making your decision regarding which one you should opt for

Feel free to ask any questions by dropping a comment below, as we love to hear from you!

Maria is a Technical Content Writer at Arpatech. She loves to stay up to date with the latest technological trends and working in Information Technology field. She has a keen passion for reading and blogging. You can follow her on Twitter @binte_saeed or e.mail maria.saeed[at]arpatech.com